Politician at work
Has the fat lady sung? Is it really now all done and dusted? Is the Brexit we voted for and wanted – No Deal, just OUT – now finished? If you believe that the MSM pundits are as infallible in their political predictions as our MPs, then yes. If not – not. Let me explain …
Our MSM, the BBC first and foremost, are Remainers, with a couple of honourable exceptions. Thus it won’t surprise you that, having achieved the removal of ‘No Deal’ and the parliamentary ‘permission’ of asking the EU for an extension, the MSM are now training their opinion-making guns on Ms May’s attempt to get her despicable WA ‘deal’ through Parliament for the third (!) time of asking. Of course, no-one is pointing out that demanding repeat voting on the same issue until the result is correct is an old, tried-and-truste EU technique …
You might also recall that, ever since Tony Blair, ‘briefing against’ is a tried and trusted mechanism of Party insiders and officials to discredit their perceived opponents. The MSM are now gleefully using this technique. You can recognise which way they want the debate to go by noting their description of the ERG as ‘hard-core’ while fixing the blame for the mess we’re in exclusively on them.
You don’t need to be a pundit yourself to see what these Remain pundits want us to think when you read the articles across the board about cabinet ministers and especially Mr Phil Hammond having visited the DUP yesterday. The spin is: hurrah, the DUP will fold because Mr Hammond has bribed them! See here and here and (paywalled) here and here. Thus, over the weekend and on the Sunday TV ‘mememe’ shows, pundits and politicians will keep the May-pot boiling.
The other ‘item’ our MSM pundits and politicians are focussing on is the Tory Party/Tory MPs. Who will give in to May’s ‘last chance’ WA vote? Who is plotting to have her ‘removed’? Will she discipline her delinquent cabinet ministers? Fat chance: they are all Remainers!
It’s a delicious subject and means that TV time and space and pixels can be filled without having to address the reason why those so-called ‘Brexit rebels’ reject that May deal: the actual abomination that is the WA. Read here and here and (paywalled) here, if you like: more reports on gossip by ‘informed’ insiders.
Of course, the speculation about who should replace Ms May if she goes, if she is made to go and if so, when, are also getting an airing (paywalled articles here and here). That question is being given importance because getting May to leave is a most useful token in the horse-trading to get her dreadful WA ‘over the line’ next week. For the third (!) time of asking …
For good measure, dear Jeremy Corbyn is also added into this weekend brew (link). He is apparently going to ‘hold a summit’ with the SNP and the other opposition parties to work out a way to get his beloved 2nd Referendum back on the parliamentary table … after Labour had declined to vote for the relevant amendment on Thursday. You really couldn’t make it up …
Having read this far, you’ll have noticed that two items are missing in today’s MSM. One is the EU and what they’re doing. I think they are talking to each other behind firmly closed doors, no leaks allowed. Thus the one article this morning is just about what “a BBC Correspondent” has picked up from somewhere, namely that Ms Merkel has now ‘had enough’ … how perfectly awful!
The other missing item is a debate on the content of the WA (this is why the ‘hard-core’ EUsceptics are against it) and the backstop. Talk about the backstop has now descended into ‘my lawyer is bigger than your lawyer’. If the horestrading and backroom dealings are successful and Ms May’s WA is dragged over the deadline next week – for the third (!) time of asking! – then all that legal advice matters nought anyway.
Looking back on this “septem horribilis” (that’s ‘orrible week in Latin), the verdict of the DT editors (paywalled) is spot on:
“If in 2016 the British people voted to return lost powers to Parliament, Thursday was the day that Parliament voted to hand power straight back to the EU. […] The Commons was simply doing what it is meant to do by scrutinising the Agreement before voting it down. But instead of sending Mrs May back to the table to thrash out a better deal backed by a committed political establishment, Remainers seized the chance to undermine the withdrawal process entirely.”
The article concludes:
“[The Remainers’] next goal will be to push for a permanent customs union, which would turn Britain into a backwater market of the European project. This is the debate Remainers want us all to have: is Brexit worth doing under any circumstances? The rational answer is no. Therefore, Remainers are trying to ensure that the Brexit offered to us is as rotten as possible. […] The two main parties are splitting apart. The more Brexit is visibly frustrated, the more intense the arguments will become, the greater the public anger will be – and the more likely it is that both Labour and the Tories face a reckoning at the ballot box.”
To be sure – but when they do face that reckoning, the damage to Brexit, by consenting to the WA, will have been done! Remember – we were told that we cannot escape the EU because the Vienna Convention does not apply, as reported in yesterday’s article.
Well, it’s the weekend, the weather is awful – so you have time to read! For startersI heartily recommend reading this coruscating article by Dominic Sandbrook in the DM. He is laying into the MPs, both Remain and Leave. It is a true joy, the ‘ouch’ of his hits on Leave notwithstanding.
If you crave an uplift and want your sanity restored, you must read the two latest items in the Diary of the unsurpassed Sir John Redwood. And to give you good cheer, here’s the last article you ought to read today, published yesterday in BrexitCentral: “Ignore the nay-sayers …”
Having read all that, email your constituency MPs and tell them what you really think! Don’t mince your words!
13 days to Brexit if we work hard this weekend – so:
KBO!
Dominic Sandbrook refers to “the hardliners” (a pejorative word if ever there was one) who “often talk of their great love for Margaret Thatcher, because she was nothing if not a pragmatist. When she negotiated her budget rebate from the EU in the early 1980s, for example, she had to settle for less than she initially wanted.”
That’s called the art of negotiation, you start at your preferred position, knowing that you will probably have to moderate your demands in order that each party feels satisfied with the eventual deal. Mrs May appears to have started at that midway point and, emboldened by that, the EU has backed her into a corner.
Her one residual trump card, a WTO leave on 29th March, has been snatched from her by these turncoat MPs and handed to Brussels.
One can only assume that they are so ill-informed and lacking in intelligence, that they didn’t know for what they were voting.
Oh no; that was the ‘leave’ voters wasn’t it?!
Viv, your references to John Redwood are always worth following up. I listened to his speech in the debate on Thursday, and conveniently he has posted it on his web site on 15th. I am pleased to see he agrees with me that we can leave under WTO WITH a deal using GATT24.
But it can be better still; we can used GATT24 with all the third countries with which the EU28 has a trade deal.
What I do not understand is why Leave Means Leave are not pushing the same argument. Merry get togethers in Birmingham (ignored) and marching to London (likely to be ignored) get you nowhere: remember the Stop The War March in London in which it is said 1,000,000 took part – ignored by Blair as if it had not happened.
With GATT24 proposed by an eminent L-M-L supporter and endorsed by its Chairman why a deathly silence? Could it be that some of the merry band of supporters you can see on their web site are in fact fifth columnists? If anyone has any insight I would dearly love to know.
A comment on Leave means Leave website:
https://www.leavemeansleave.eu/leave-means-leave-to-sue-for-euro-elections-if-art-50-extended/
Leave Means Leave, the cross party campaign group for a true Brexit, is to mount legal action against the UK Government to ensure that European Elections will be held in the UK on May 23rd 2019 if Article 50 to leave the EU is extended.
A nice and entertaining idea is that Ollie and his half a million other civil servants together with its vast reservoir of intellect, have got together to devise a computer game. And they and the Mrs are desperately trying to beat it.
GDP goes up with every extra immigrant we welcome. But GDP is a very bad measure. Every bit of which can be easily affected by politicians etc. A far better measure of the state of the country is GDPper person. This is still not perfect But until this is understood we might as well stop talking about the economy.
I am not conversant about the affects of the financial sector on the GDP. However it should be aware that one main driver of the real economy is finance…Second,much of this sector is actually positively harmful to the population and is uncontrolled through ignorance and idleness.. Third, Every strike , justified or not Slices huge lumps off the economy.. Unions are the people. Union leaders are normally out of control ( So there is a clue ).. Fourth, Tax sucks the blood out of the productive economy and replaces it with people who use it for themselves.. The list of these is endless But starts with Civil service as a part of politics who can be classified as those who get to decide where the money goes, followed by those who get it. Again from those who earn it, to those who don’t ( The establishment )
So Leaving the EU Will improve our Finacial a bit and give us the opportunity to use it to improve the economy startlingly. Similarly for Tax ( Which some MP s sort of understand, as that is what they are there for ). And similarly for Unions. Then we’ll lead the world again . And then we’ll have to waste or invest it to get the balance right. I assume we do not want to start another empire as per EU.
I’m sorry about this semi knowledgeable tirade but I read a link about ‘ after Brexit ‘
OK but this all depends on there being quality leadership of the UK – any hopes?
No
News just in: Nick Boles has resigned as member of his Conservative association … because he was going to be deselected.
For sheer, unmitigated contempt of his Conservative association members and his voters, you’ve got to read his statement here:
https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2019/03/boles-has-resigned-his-membership-of-his-conservative-association-but-wishes-to-continue-taking-the-conservative-whip.html
Words fail me!
If the ‘money where your mouth’ polling is correct, his constituency may not have to put up with this particular pompous arse for too long.
*paddypower*
Year of Next Uk Election
2019 5/4 2022 7/4 2020 4/1 2021 7/1
*Ladbrokes*
Year of Next General Election
2019 6/4 2020 7/2 2021 8/1 2022 or Later 7/4
Month of Next Election
Apr 2019 20/1 May 2019 3/1 June 2019 6/1 July 2019 33/1
I am not a betting man but have always thought that the bookies were at least as good as any pollsters etc in trying to forecast all sorts of events as their money depends on it.
But Ladbrokes offering 7/4 on the next general election being 2022 or later?
By the Fixed Term Parliament Act the latest we can have the next election is 2022, so are they taking bets that we have had our last GE until someone ( eg EU or Parliament/May ) decides we can be trusted to return the correct result?
I do hope the writers of BrexitCentral are right and we leave as we should. However as Kim says we must not forget the traitors and do all that is necessary to remove them from government.
Like many who visit this site and are concerned for their country and its likely disappearance it is still difficult for me to comprehend what is happening. That is, to keep up with the increasingly convulsive, squirming, ducking, diving and of course lying behaviour of our ‘democratic representatives’ (sic).
It seemed quite clear to some of us that our Government were not negotiating at all with the EU but conniving with their masters on how to deal with inconvenient UK Parliamentary procedures and the British electorate.
Again Viv in her Brexit Betrayal articles has supported the maintenance of my sanity. But also others such as Sir John Redwood and Christopher Howarth who writes in answer to his own question of whether May will change her ‘deal’.
‘No, because the Prime Minister does not want to change her deal. No, because when presented with the chance to vote on the Malthouse proposals for alternatives to the backstop, she refused (along with her Brexit Secretary). She has allowed her own Cabinet to sabotage her negotiating hand, because she is not proposing to negotiate. She does not support changing the backstop – so it won’t be changed.’
This makes perfect sense except I would suggest that it is not ‘her deal’!
A another sickening development is the idea that May is ‘doing her best’ or is ‘up against the odds’ is laughable. Perhaps those that are extolling this nonsense should watch this little clip
https://twitter.com/Change_Britain/status/1101037035937320960
No there will be some people who are bewildered. As was the Inspector at the end of this clip by the rat. That May be an apt name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_q4S7lZeik
Maintain humour and the blood pressure pills.
In my mind there is one thing, among a number of others, which must be remembered.
That is, not to forget the traitors and who they are.